Page 19 - BusinessWest December 8, 2021
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 subcontracting team with us for many, many years. In terms of our employ- ees, they have had family obligations they had to meet during COVID, such as homeschooling and schools being closed down, kids at home. So we have accommodated their needs, and they have stayed with us through the whole year and a half, and we are really for- tunate and glad that they have stayed with us all this time; they bring a level of knowledge and skill to our projects that really serve our company and our customers well.”
Optimism Ahead
As noted earlier, despite the indus- try-wide, often global challenges, area firms have stayed busy.
“For us, this year has been a really good year,” Pat said. “Part of that is thanks to Adaptas Solutions in Palmer, which is a manufacturer in the Palmer Industrial Park that had renovations of five high-tech buildings.
“We were building a clean room and upgrading their facilities,” she added. “It really sustained us and positioned them well as a company. It was a good, steady year for us.”
The firm’s niches in medical and
“It’s easier to run a business when everybody’s on the same team, pushing in the same direction. So we’re happy to forgo a little profit to have that.”
dental facilities continue top be strong as well, she added, and it’s starting
to edge into an area with significant growth potential: cannabis.
“One thing I’m grateful about is
that we have our bread and butter, our dental and medical work, and now that technical capability and knowledge we’ve developed in those industries
is transferring over to the cannabis industry,” she told BusinessWest. “So we have a lot of work coming up, includ- ing projects that we hope will be com- ing through in the cannabis industry.”
Keiter is similarly pleased with his firm’s pipeline.
“We work with a lot of the institu- tions of higher learning, and those projects continue. We’re also working with a number of nonprofit organi- zations. We had a pretty good run in 2021. We built a number of new homes, got a lot of residential construction. All the various parts of our business are moving in the right direction.”
In other words, business is boom- ing. That’s the big, positive takeaway amid all the industry concerns about workforce and supply — and how they are, in many ways, the same issue.
“It’s busy, and things are moving. Demand is there,” Keiter said. “We’re here and working hard, and we’re going to get through it. Everyone in construction is hopeful that we’ll start to work our way out of the pandemic and maybe stabilize a little bit.”
Craig Sweitzer agreed. “We’re bid- ding like mad, and I’m assuming there’s still a lot of optimism out there, so we can only hope to stay as busy as we’ve been. In spite of all the craziness, there does seem to be a lot of opti- mism out there.” u
Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]
Shire City Endo in Lenox is one of Sweitzer Construction’s many recent medical projects.
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